


you are here, and so am i (maybe millions of people go by)

by everdeen



Category: Dickinson (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, austin is in this both as himself and as a very cute dog, honestly it's more 'middle school acquaintances to friends to lovers' but who am i to nitpick?, i will not be taking any questions or comments at this time, sue LOVES to pine. and good for her!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everdeen/pseuds/everdeen
Summary: “Oh,” she said finally. “Sue! From middle school. Weren’t you in Boston?”“I moved back,” Sue said.“Yeah, I heard about that, actually,” Emily replied. “I love your dog.”“Thanks,” Sue said. “Are you — okay?”“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Emily told her, though she looked at the same time like she was about two seconds from falling over.“Are you drunk?”“Yeah,” Emily said, then, clearly sensing some judgement in Sue’s tone that wasn’t actually there: “What’s it to you? Free country, right?”“Kind of,” Sue replied, “except you’re on my front lawn, so.”Sue is perfectly fine being alone and not in a hurry to change that. Emily doesn't get the memo.
Relationships: Emily Dickinson/Susan Gilbert Dickinson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 122





	1. the front lawn, the living room, the kitchen

**Author's Note:**

> based off a tumblr prompt! honestly i do think emily would 100% get drunk and then trespass onto someone's property in order to pet their cute dog but maybe that's just me! yet again, however, i have enjoyed throwing characters into near-impossible scenarios and seeing what happens. 
> 
> title taken from harry warren/al dubin's 'i only have eyes for you', the flamingos version being the best, of course.

_‘In the next world, I want to be something useful._

_Like a staple gun. Or in love.’_

**Bradley Trumpfheller, ‘Speculative Realism’ (2020)** ****

* * *

She had been living in her house for three months, but she still wasn’t used to the stars.

When Sue had first moved back home to Amherst, many things had been precisely as she had predicted. She expected that she would be jarred, at first, by the seeming smallness of the town compared to Boston and New York, and she was. She expected that the neighbours would still remember her as she remembered them, and they did. She expected that she would practically give up using her car altogether because she knew that everything was a few minutes walk away. But she had forgotten about the stars. They were visible almost from the moment the sun went down each evening, shining so brightly that they didn’t seem real. Every night without fail Sue found herself, at some point, craning her neck upwards just to stare at them.

When, much later, she explained to Emily that that was what she was doing on her porch at three in the morning the night that they met — that she hadn’t been able to sleep and the stars were visible from her bedroom window, that they were so big and clear it had seemed reasonable, almost necessary, to go outside and smoke a cigarette as she stared at them — the information was well-received. Emily was extremely enthusiastic about the idea that they had met because of the stars. The reality was far less romantic. Firstly, because Sue had never been looking to meet Emily at all. She had never considered herself lonely because she had spent the vast majority of her life alone. From a young age, she had told herself that this was an immutable fact about herself — she was Sue, and so she was alone. So she never actively sought company, and she certainly never did it by sitting on her porch and waiting for a woman to stumble into her front garden.

The second reason their meeting was not very romantic was that Emily had been black-out drunk.

For the first fifteen minutes after she’d decided to go outside, Sue had sat in relative peace. Austin had been scratching at the door for a while — he always seemed to be restless whenever she was, as though in solidarity — so she’d let him come out with her. Now he sat curled up at her feet sleepily, nudging at her feet every so often with a tiny growl. Sue scratched the little patch of fur between his ears and felt sorry that he couldn’t see the stars like she could. She imagined that Austin, who was incredibly thoughtful and earnest, for a dog, would love them. They sat in silence. Another thing about Amherst — it was quiet in the evenings, which cities never were. Eventually, Austin whined low in his throat and hopped off the porch to relieve himself. Sue snorted.

“You’re so polite,” she called out to him as she heard the tell-tale trickle of water a few seconds later.

“Thank you,” replied a voice that definitely wasn’t Austin, since he was a dog and couldn’t talk. Sue blinked in surprise and shifted in her seat on the porch.

“Er, I wasn’t talking to you?” she said, squinting out at the front garden. She could just make out a figure by the fence, leaning against the mailbox.

“Oh,” said the figure. “Who were you talking to?”

Sue paused. “My dog,” she said eventually. “He’s just peeing, so.”

“Is peeing polite?” asked the figure, who was still not very visible.

“It is when you’re a dog and you step off the porch to do it,” Sue replied. “What are you — doing?”

“Looking at your dog.” The figure took a few steps towards Austin, who had finished receiving himself and was now watching the person approaching warily. “Oh my god, he’s so frickin’ cute,” said the figure. “Can I pet him?”

“Uh —“

“Hey, boy.” The figure knelt down and Sue realised from the complete clumsiness of the action that they were almost certainly drunk. “You’re such a good boy. You’re such a good… what’s his name?”

“Austin,” Sue said, still too confused by this entire series of events to do anything else.

“ _Austin_?” said the figure. “No way. That’s my brother’s name!”

A faint pang of recognition registered somewhere in Sue’s brain at this, and she stood up from her seat to peer more closely at the person still petting her dog.

“Emily Dickinson?” Sue asked with surprise.

“No,” said Emily with a hiccup. “That’s _my_ name. My brother’s name is Austin. Like your dog.”

“No, I know your name,” Sue said. “I’m Sue. Sue Gilbert. From middle school?”

Emily finally shifted her gaze from Austin (who had been thoroughly enjoying the attention) to Sue and squinted at her for a long moment. “Oh,” she said finally. “Sue! From middle school. Weren’t you in Boston?”

“I moved back,” Sue said.

“Yeah, I heard about that, actually,” Emily replied. “I love your dog.”

“Thanks,” Sue said. “Are you — okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Emily told her, though she looked at the same time like she was about two seconds from falling over.

“Are you drunk?”

“Yeah,” Emily said, then, clearly sensing some judgement in Sue’s tone that wasn’t actually there: “What’s it to you? Free country, right?”

“Kind of,” Sue replied, “except you’re on my front lawn, so.”

“That’s on you,” said Emily, “for having a dog that’s so cute. Is he really called Austin?”

“Yeah.” Sue wasn’t sure why she would make something like her dog’s name up, but she didn’t say this.

“He’s _way_ cuter than my Austin,” Emily said. “My Austin is going through his mid-twenties crisis. And a man.”

“Yeah,” said Sue in agreement, because her dog did sound cuter than that. She vaguely remembered Austin, who had always looked more like Emily’s twin than her older brother and had a bright smile and kind eyes, even when they were teenagers.

“I’m really tired,” announced Emily.

“Um,” Sue said, because she didn’t know what to do with this information. “I could…call you a cab?”

“No, it’s fine. I can walk,” Emily replied, not very convincingly. She was still crouched down on the ground. Austin (the dog, not her brother) was still sitting next to her, as if concerned. “Just gimme a sec. And then I’ll get up. And out of your…hair…lawn…”

“Uh-huh,” Sue said, finally stepping off the porch and towards her. “You need some help?”

“N _oooo_ ,” Emily replied, dragging out the vowel sound.

“Come on,” Sue said, holding out her hand. From her closer vantage point she could see Emily’s face more clearly. It hadn’t much changed since Sue had last seen it, although she was definitely now a very beautiful woman and not an awkward thirteen-year-old girl. She remembered thinking Emily was kind of weird at school, if nice enough. It seemed like this was still the case.

“No, seriously, I’m —“

Her protest was cut off as she leaned away from Austin and promptly threw up at Sue’s feet. Austin let out another whine.

“Oh, boy,” Sue said. “You okay?”

“Yep,” Emily replied. “I’m great.”

“You should probably come inside,” said Sue. “Can you stand?”

“Yeah,” Emily said, before falling from her sitting position onto the ground. Austin growled a little and nudged her with his nose. Sue sighed and grabbed Emily rather unceremoniously from beneath her arms.

“I like your eyes,” Emily said once they were face to face.

“Okay,” Sue said. “Can you stand now?”

“They’re like stars,” Emily replied dreamily.

“Standing. Now. Please.”

Sue managed to get Emily upright for long enough to duck underneath one of her arms and support her weight whilst moving back towards the house.

“You’re strong,” Emily observed.

“Not really,” Sue replied, because the reality was Emily was relatively slight, and her weight wasn’t too hard to bear. Austin trotted alongside and observed their journey with interest. Eventually they made it to the front door.

“Nice house,” Emily remarked. “How are you, like, twenty-three with a house?”

“My parents died,” Sue managed to get out in a grunt as she pushed the front door open and got them over the threshold.

“Oh, shit,” Emily said. “Sorry, that sucks.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sue replied. “Can you please try standing up by yourself now?”

Emily did so dutifully. “I like your front hall. That’s a nice picture.”

Sue followed her line of sight to the photo hanging in the hallway. It was her with her parents at her high school graduation. “Thanks,” she said, though she wasn’t sure how Emily could see it in the dark.

“Do you miss them?”

“Yeah,” Sue said. She’d usually roll her eyes at such an obvious question but it was nearly four in the morning and she was too tired to be sardonic.

There was also something about the sincerity on Emily’s face. It made her feel incapable of anything but honesty. “The house is kinda big without them.”

“I see that.”

“I’m thinking about selling it and getting an apartment somewhere else,” she said without really knowing why. She had not shared this information with anyone because she hadn’t had anyone to share it with. Emily was staring at her as though she understood this even though she had no way of knowing it was the case.

“Somewhere like not Amherst?”

“I guess.” Sue shrugged.

“Amherst is nice, though,” Emily said.

“It is nice,” Sue agreed. She didn’t say that she was already growing tired of the pitying looks people on her road sent her every time she left the house. She didn’t say that she hadn’t had time to make any friends and wasn’t sure how to start. She didn’t say that there was something vaguely haunting about moving back home when you’d spent most of your life so far figuring out how to move as far away as possible from it. Instead, she said: “You should probably just crash here tonight.”

“No,” Emily yawned. “You can just — call me a cab…”

Sue considered the abruptness with which Emily had thrown up outside. “I don’t think that’s the best idea,” she said.

“What?”

“You being alone right now. Is there someone I can call to pick you up?”

Emily thought about this for a long while. “No,” she said eventually. “Vinnie’s at her boyfriend’s. And Austin was drinking with me. I don’t know where he is, actually…”

“Couch, then,” Sue said, choosing to disregard this last remark and worry about one Dickinson at a time. When Emily didn’t move and simply stared at her blankly, she said: “My living room is behind you.”

“Oh,” Emily said, turning with not much grace towards the aforementioned living room. “Sweet.”

“I don’t need to help you walk again, do I?” Sue asked cautiously.

“No, no,” Emily said, staggering towards the couch. “I’ll be —“she cut herself off with a long yawn — “fine.”

“Okay,” Sue said. “Well, here you go. I’ll just get you, you know, some water and, er, a pillow…”

She gestured awkwardly towards the kitchen and began to back out of the room as Emily deposited herself on the couch.

She didn’t really know the etiquette for taking care of someone who had drunkenly petted your dog and then thrown up on your front lawn. Nonetheless, she filled up a glass of water in the kitchen before going upstairs to grab a comforter from the linen closet. She wondered if it was rude to relegate Emily to the couch as she had. There was a spare room on the second floor, but in all honesty, Sue wasn’t sure she had any hope of getting Emily up the stairs without incident, vomit-related or otherwise.

When she returned to the living room, Emily was flung upon the couch with an arm across her eyes, already snoring loudly. Sue smiled before she could stop herself. She knew it was odd to feel such fondness for an effective stranger, but there was something so endearing about the scene that she couldn’t help it. She covered her with the comforter and placed the water on the coffee table. Once she’d straightened up, she saw that Austin had curled himself up at the foot of the couch and was asleep as well. She leaned over to place a kiss on his head then went upstairs to bed.

* * *

Sue was woken up the next morning by someone tapping insistently at her bedroom door. She was momentarily terrified at the prospect of a home invasion before her sleep-sodden brain caught up with itself and she remembered everything at once: Emily Dickinson on her front lawn, Emily Dickinson talking to her dog, Emily Dickinson talking to her, Emily Dickinson passing out on her couch, and now, probably, Emily Dickinson knocking on her bedroom door.

“Uh, good morning,” came Emily’s voice from behind the door, confirming Sue’s suspicions. “Sue?” A pause. “Okay, is this not the bedroom either? Because honestly, I’ve knocked on every other door on this floor, and I was hoping this would be the winner.”

“It is the bedroom,” Sue managed through a yawn, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “One second.”

She got up and padded over to the door. When she opened it she was met by an Emily who looked far too bright-eyed for someone who had thrown up in a near-stranger’s front garden only a few hours before.

“Hey,” Emily said. “There are so many rooms in this house, it’s insane.”

Sue looked around the landing. There were four doors coming off it: the bathroom, her bedroom, what used to be her parents bedroom, and the spare bedroom. “I feel like the house has a normal number of rooms,” she said.

“Well, try knocking on them all and calling out for Sue and waiting for Sue to reply and then you’ll see what I mean,” Emily said.

“Okay,” Sue said amenably. She couldn’t really keep up with what Emily was saying, but she was already realising that this was probably going to be how their conversations usually went. Instead she rubbed her eyes a few times again, before letting out after another yawn and asking: “Did you sleep okay?”

Emily was staring at her with an odd expression on her face, as though she’d never seen someone yawn before.

“Emily?” Sue prompted.

“Huh?”

Sue squinted at her confusedly. “Did you sleep okay?” she repeated.

“Oh,” Emily said. “Yeah. Totally. Like a rock, actually.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sue said.

“Oh,” Emily said again.

“Because you were really drunk last night,” Sue explained, probably unnecessarily.

Emily looked very flustered and Sue watched as her face slowly turned a very faint shade of pink. “Yeah,” she said, “about that. I’m _really_ sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sue said.

“No, but seriously,” Emily said earnestly. “I’m languishing in humiliation right now.”

“It doesn’t seem like you are,” Sue replied, because Emily seemed fairly well adjusted and not exactly dying of embarrassment.

“I am,” Emily assured her, “trust me.”

Sue paused here. “You kind of…threw up last night. Outside.”

“I did?” Emily asked with horror. Then, with sinking realisation: “I did.”

“Yeah,” Sue said with a grimace. She wasn’t sure what the protocol was after this point. She’d kind of hoped that it would be clearer to figure out what to do after a few hours of sleep, but so far she was just as clueless as she had been at three o’clock that morning.

“I’ll clean that up,” Emily said miserably. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sue said, and she was surprised to find herself meaning it. “I can give you, like, a bucket, or...”

“Thanks,” Emily said, still looking very sorry for herself.

In an attempt to appease her, Sue said: “I can make breakfast while you do. Are waffles okay?”

“Oh, no, I’ve — I’ve put you out so much already,” Emily said, but the protest came out weakly, particularly in contrast with the way her eyes had lit up at the mention of waffles.

“Let me get you the cleaning stuff,” Sue said, moving past her and down the stairs. She reached the sink and retrieved anything she found that looked like it might help Emily in her unenviable task.

“Here,” she said, shoving a potentially excessive pile of cleaning equipment in Emily’s arms.

“Uh,” Emily said. “I don’t think I know what, like, half of this stuff for.”

“Well, just use the stuff that you do know,” Sue suggested. Emily opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a quiet whine from the kitchen door. They both turned around to see that Austin was standing there, looking sorrowful.

“Oh my god,” Emily breathed reverently. “I thought I’d dreamed him.”

“No, he’s very real,” Sue assured her. “And he’s annoyed at me because I haven’t given him breakfast yet. Here, boy,” she said, crouching down and opening up her arms. Austin simply stood in the doorway and fixed her with a distinctly unimpressed stare.

“Less cuddles, more food, got it,” Sue said, moving over to the cupboard to retrieve his breakfast. She glanced over at Emily, who was still looking at Austin with something between awe and adoration.

“You’re a dog person, huh?” Sue asked wryly as she poured Austin’s food into his bowl.

“Yeah,” Emily said distantly. “I love them. I mean, we’ve never had one, my mom’s allergic, but…”

“Dogs are the best,” Sue agreed as Austin scrambled up to his bowl and began eating. “Austin’s my best bud, aren’t ya, boy?” she added, scratching him softly between his ears.

“So I didn’t dream that either,” Emily said.

“Dream what?”

“Dream that your dog is named after my brother.”

Sue frowned. “He is not,” she said. “That’s a coincidence.”

“A coincidence,” Emily repeated, looking at Sue’s face searchingly. “Huh.”

Sue raised her eyebrows. It was becoming apparent to her that Emily’s odd behaviour last night was actually a consistent personality trait and not the result of drunkenness. “Don’t you have some cleaning to do?” she prompted.

“Right,” Emily said, with a slight jolt, as though being yanked out of deep thought. “Sure. Cleaning. Fun. I’ll just…”

She nodded in the vague direction of the front door and disappeared out of the kitchen. Sue watched her go then started on the batter for the waffles. As she did so she tried to piece together the events that had occurred over the last few hours and led to her making breakfast to share with someone who she’d last spoken to in middle school. Since moving to Amherst Sue had become thoroughly unused to social contact, apart from the occasional text exchange with the few friends she still had in Boston or small talk with the guy at the grocery store. She wondered if this was why she’d ended up in this situation, and if someone more socially adept would have done things differently. What stuck with her even more, probably because she was currently making them, was the waffles. Sue couldn’t even remember the last time she’d made some for herself, let alone offered to make them for someone else. But she’d suggested them to Emily as though it were a completely normal thing to do.

Eventually Sue decided that these existential questions were probably best left for when she’d eaten and slept a little more, and that for now breakfast was the priority. She concentrated on cooking the waffles and digging out some fruit from her refrigerator to top them with. She’d just finished slathering them with maple syrup when she heard the front door open and close, then a set of footsteps coming through the hall. Soon enough Emily trudged in, looking a little pale.

“Everything cleaned up,” she announced solemnly.

“Great,” Sue said slowly, eyeing her carefully. “You okay there? You look a little…”

“Sick?” Emily filled in. “Yeah. Turns out cleaning up vomit can do that to a girl.”

“Even your own vomit?” Sue asked.

“ _Especially_ your own vomit,” Emily said. “Anyway, it’s done now. And this smells _incredible_.”

“Well, it’s all ready,” Sue said, wondering why on earth she felt a little warm at the reverent tone in Emily’s voice. “So, food’s up, I guess.”

She grabbed the two plates from the counter and crossed over to the small kitchen table. Emily followed, sitting down and beginning to eat with a speed Sue didn’t think she’d ever seen before.

“ _Oh_ my God,” she moaned through a mouthful of waffle. “This is incredible. Is this what they teach you over in Boston?”

“Amongst other things,” Sue said, feeling the strange warm feeling come over her again.

“Mm,” Emily let out with a nod, shoving another forkful into her mouth. “Well, wow. I mean, _wow_.”

“Thank you,” Sue replied.

“You’re so welcome,” Emily said after swallowing. “I mean, thank _you_. For, you know. Feeding me. And letting me sleep over. And…” She trailed off, as though remembering the entire situation, and started to go a light shade of pink. “Well, I mean, thanks. Seriously. I’d probably be passed out on a street corner by now, so…”

“It’s okay,” Sue said. She hadn’t really spent such a long period of time with someone for a while. Half of her was wildly uncomfortable and the other half was strangely enthusiastic. She felt herself on the precipice of danger, like a traveller in the desert who had finally come across an oasis and couldn’t be sure if it was a mirage or not.

“So do you usually eat here, and not the dining room?” Emily asked, oblivious to Sue’s slightly panicked thoughts.

“Yeah,” Sue replied with a blink of surprise at being asked about her solitary eating arrangements. “I mean, it would be kind of stupid to eat in there.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s…just me?”

“You could still eat in there,” Emily said with a shrug. “It’s really nice.”

“It would be weird,” Sue said.

“Okay,” Emily said, still looking sceptical.

“I haven’t eaten there since my parents died, anyway,” Sue said unthinkingly. She realised her mistake when Emily paused in her eating to look at her very seriously. “Sorry,” Sue added, belatedly. “I’m not used to, uh.”

“Talking about it?” Emily asked.

“No, I am used to that,” Sue said, thinking of the endless conversations she’d had to sit through immediately after it had happened. “But not talking about it in, like, a casual way, I guess.”

“Okay,” Emily said. She paused, then added: “I’m kind of remembering everything we said yesterday, now.”

Sue hesitated. “Okay?” she said uncertainly. “I mean, there isn’t that much to remember. You…passed out pretty quickly, once we got inside.”

“No, I know that,” Emily said, blushing slightly. “I just mean, you know. I remember you. Sue.”

“That’s me,” Sue said. In all honesty, she hadn’t even considered the possibility that Emily wouldn’t remember who she was, considering they were sitting here eating breakfast together.

“You always had the nicest hair in middle school,” Emily said thoughtfully. “I remember being so jealous of it.”

“Thanks,” Sue said, touching a hand to the back of her head as though subconsciously checking that the hair on it was in fact still nice.

“You still do,” Emily said quickly, as though sensing this instinct and wanting to assure her.

“Not right now,” Sue said. “I’ve got bedhead right now.”

Emily let out a slight laugh. “Me too,” she said. “Or, couch head, I guess. Thanks again. By the way.”

“You’re welcome again,” Sue said. “But really, you don’t have to keep thanking me.”

“I mean, I threw up on your lawn.”

“And you cleaned it up,” Sue said with a shrug.

“That’s true,” Emily said. “At least it makes a good story. Entertaining.”

“Yeah,” Sue said, because this whole encounter had been many things, but boring wasn’t one of them.

Emily opened her mouth to say something else, but was cut off by her cell phone buzzing against the surface of the kitchen table. She glanced at the screen and grimaced.

“It’s my mom,” she said apologetically. “Do you mind if I…”

“No, no, sure,” Sue said, waving her ahead. “Go for it.”

“Thanks,” Emily said, before sliding her finger along the screen to accept the call and bringing her cell phone to her ear. “Mom,” she said with no little amount of trepidation, then got up and walked into the next room.

Sue continued to finish her breakfast. She couldn’t hear much of the conversation but from what she caught of Emily’s voice it sounded like her entire family had been very concerned about her whereabouts, which was understandable. She finished eating and got up to let Austin out into the back yard. It was a mild sort of autumn day, her favourite kind. The wind was still soft and summery, unwilling to harden out into the chilly bite of winter just yet. The apple tree at the bottom of the yard was getting heavy with fruit. Sue considered going out to pick the apples later.

“Hey,” Emily said, reappearing in the kitchen and looking a little sheepish. “So, Austin is on his way to pick me up.” She paused and looked out at the yard. “My Austin,” she amended, clearly catching sight of Sue’s Austin, who was in the process of chasing a leaf that had landed on his nose and so probably wouldn’t be picking anyone up anywhere, particularly considering he was a dog.

“Sure,” Sue said. “Do you guys live together?”

“Yeah,” Emily said. “We’re roommates, actually. We get on pretty well, and we kind of couldn’t bear living with our parents any longer, and Lavinia’s still away at college, so…”

“Lavinia,” Sue repeated, trying to pinpoint the name. “Your sister?” she said after a second’s thought.

“Yeah,” Emily said, nodding. “Sorry, weird of me to assume you know her. Or me, honestly.”

“I do know you,” Sue told her, raising her eyebrows. “We went to school together.”

“Middle school,” Emily said.

“Still school,” Sue said.

“I’ve changed since then,” Emily informed her. She seemed quite proud of this. Sue could feel her lips curling up in a very small smile.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Everyone has, hasn't they?”

“Austin’s kind of the same,” Emily told her with a shrug. “You’ll see.” Then, after a second: “My Austin, not your Austin.”

“You don’t have to keep clarifying that,” Sue told her. “It’s obvious which one you mean.”

“Not always,” Emily argued.

“Sure,” Sue said, with a snort. Emily looked like she was about to continue making her point when the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be Austin,” she said. “My Austin.”

“Yeah,” Sue said. “My Austin is peeing in the yard, so.”

“That’s a good point,” Emily said, before heading over to the door. Sue followed her with slight hesitation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so many guests in such a short stretch of time.

“You look like shit,” Emily said when she opened the door to reveal Austin Dickinson, who did actually look fairly similar to how Sue remembered him, just a lot taller, and now also hungover.

“Wow, Em,” Austin said. “Thanks. It’s good to see you too. How the hell did you end up here?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said. She turned to Sue. “How far are you from The Spoke?”

Sue thought for a second. “Pretty far,” she said.

“Huh,” Emily said with a frown. “Were we at the Spoke last night?” she asked Austin.

“Yeah,” Austin said, peering past Emily at Sue. “Hey. Sue Gilbert, right?”

“Yeah,” Sue said with a wave.

“Thanks for saving my little sister,” he said with a grin. “She’s kind of crazy, so.”

“Austin,” Emily said with a sniff. “Shut _up_.”

“Uh-huh,” Austin said. “Well, let’s get going. We’re having lunch at Mom and Dad’s later.”

“Wait, _what_?” Emily said with horror. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Austin said. “Sunday, remember?”

“ _Noooo_ ,” Emily groaned, leaning dramatically against the doorframe. “I can’t do it, Austin, no _way_. I’m _so_ hungover, I might _die_ if I have to listen to Mom try to set me up with someone again…”

“You can tell her that yourself,” Austin said pleasantly. “I’m sure she’d take it well. Come on, I need to shower before we go. I’ll wait in the car.” 

“Fine,” Emily grumbled, before looking over at Sue, who had watched the siblings’ exchange with covert interest.

“I’ll wait in the car,” Austin said. He paused to give Sue a small smile. “It was nice seeing you again, Sue.”

“You too,” Sue said. Her and Emily were left standing in the doorway as he strode over in a direction of a faded blue truck which looked very much worse for wear.

“So, thank you,” Emily said once he’d gone, her face softening out into a smile. “Again. You pretty much saved me last night. And those waffles were something else.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sue said, because she couldn’t think of something else to say and she was distracted by the recent realisation that as soon as Emily left she would be thinking about this whole night and morning for days afterwards.

“I won’t,” Emily said seriously. “Because, I mean, I am still _mortified_ , so…”

“What happens on my front lawn stays on my front lawn,” Sue assured her, though not with a slight smirk. “Your secret is safe with me.” 

“Thanks,” Emily said, grinning. “And hey, you’ll probably see me again. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Austin, so.” She paused and grimaced.“Your Austin,” she clarified.

Sue couldn’t help letting out a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “Definitely my Austin.”

“I’m not _that_ weird,” Emily told her, smiling wider. “Anyway. Thanks again, Sue from middle school. See you around.”

“Bye,” Sue said. She watched Emily walk through the front lawn (which, thankfully, looked vomit-free) over to Austin’s truck and get in. Both Dickinsons gave her a final wave through the car window and then they were gone. Sue closed the front door and went back to the kitchen. She found Austin sitting curled up on the chair where Emily had been sitting. He looked up at her entrance and let out a little snort before nosing at the seat of the chair.

“Yeah,” she said dazedly, looking at the remnants of their breakfast sitting on the table. “I don’t know what happened either.”


	2. the grocery store, the bedroom, the sidewalk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So Austin managed to get a hold of you,” she said. 
> 
> “Um,” Sue said. “I mean, he kind of just grabbed me.”
> 
> Emily’s lips quirked upwards in amusement. “He beat me to it.” 
> 
> “To what? Taking me in here to do drugs?” Sue asked. 
> 
> “To getting a hold of you,” Emily clarified. “If I’d known it was that easy to get your attention, I would have grabbed you ages ago.”

For the next few weeks the Dickinsons remained out of sight and mostly out of mind for Sue. The whole evening would probably have become a convenient small talk anecdote for her if she had anyone to make small talk with. As it was, she off-handedly told a friend about it over FaceTime in vague, contracted terms as a funny story. Then she promptly placed the entire debacle in the back of her mind, where it remained until she received a Facebook notification five days before Halloween.

 **Austin Dickinson** _invited you to DICKINSONS DO HALLOWEEN YO!!! (COSTUMES COMPULSORY)_. 

Sue squinted at the alert for a few seconds before frowning and focusing her attention back on which laundry detergent to buy since her usual was out of stock. She wasn’t averse to parties, but she knew next to no one in Amherst and wasn’t sure this would be the best way to start. Not to mention Sue was terrible at playing dress-up and five days wasn’t exactly a surplus of time to put something together. 

Then there was the question of the party being held by the Dickinsons. Had she really made that much of an impression on them? Sue picked one of the other detergents at random and continued walking down the aisle. As she deposited a pack of toilet paper into her basket, another thought struck her. She must have seemed miserable — the girl who lived alone in her dead parents’ three-storey house. She realised abruptly that this was, in all likelihood, a pity invite. The thought irritated her immensely and she carried on the rest of her shopping with uncharacteristic vitriol. She forgot to buy at least half of the things she’d gone out for and ran two red lights on the way home. All the while she was thinking about how Emily Dickinson had quite literally passed out on her front lawn but she was, somehow, the one on the back foot. 

When she got home, Austin was sat in the living room, curled up by the fireplace. The sight failed to warm her like it usually did. She sat down with a sigh, not bothering to put the groceries away, and took out her cell phone. The invite still sat at the top of her notifications, as though mocking her. She tapped it and opened up the event page. The cover photo was a picture of two young children she presumed to be Emily and Austin, dressed up as Batman and Robin. Emily was dressed as Batman and posing dramatically towards the camera accordingly — Austin-slash-Robin was bearing a bucketful of sweets pulling a funny face just behind her. It was a sweet photo and Sue found herself staring at it for a little too long before scrolling down to the event description. 

_Hey y’all!!! It’s that TIME AGAIN — THE ANNUAL HALLOWEEN DICKINSON PARTAAAAAYYYY!!!!_

_#getlit_

_BYOB and wear a SICK costume or we will not allow u in. Thems the rules!!!!_

_We r excited for u all to join us once again in our great quest to gather as many noise complaints from the apartment complex as poss. RSVP or u can stay sexy and mysterious if u want, its ur call. Ask abt plus 1s (mssg Austin not Emily bc she never replies to her texts)_

_love,_

_Em & Austin XOXOXOXO_

Sue was surprised to discover that she recognised more names on the invite list than ones she didn’t. Most of them were people she’d known in middle school or ones she still saw around town. A handful had gone to college in Boston; she’d crossed paths with them at some point over the last few years. She reached the comments on the event page, all of which expressed varying degrees of excitement. 

**George Gould commented.**

_Puuuuumped! I’ll bring the keg?_

**(15 likes)**

**Austin Dickinson replied** _& some other stuff too? ;) _

**(20 likes)**

**George Gould replied** _We’ll see_ …

**(10 likes)**

**Joseph Lyman commented.**

_so excited bro_

**Joseph Lyman commented.**

_all the ladies say i have superpowers, can i dress up as myself?_

**Lavinia Dickinson replied** _So ur coming dressed as a disgusting lizard who repels all women within a 5 mile radius?_

**(24 likes)**

**Lavinia Dickinson commented.**

_Ummmm Austin u cropped me out?? Not cool._

**Lavinia Dickinson commented.**

_Guys for everyone’s info I was the Joker that year_

**(9 likes)**

**Ship Shipley commented.**

_HELL YES_

_#reds #crimsonpride #letsgo_

**(4 likes)**

The more Sue read the more confused she felt. It was a big group of invitees, but they all seemed to know each other well. She had no idea why she was on the same list as them. For the first time, another thought entered her mind: what if she had been invited by accident? Maybe they had meant to invite a different Sue, or they had been thinking of a guy called Gilbert and accidentally invited her instead. She scrolled through the invite list again. She was the only Sue. She was also the only Gilbert. But it had been several weeks since she’d last seen Emily or Austin. It seemed bizarre to her that they would invite her to a house party out of the blue. On a whim, and before she could change her mind, she clicked on Austin’s profile and typed out a message. 

**Sue Gilbert** , **06:17PM:** _Hey, thanks for the invite on Friday._

She winced at her screen and clicked the backspace button. 

**Sue Gilbert, 06:17PM:** _Hey, thanks for inviting me to that thing!_

That read like she’d forgotten the word for party. And why was she using exclamation marks?

 **Sue Gilbert, 06:18PM:** _Hey, sorry if this is weird, but did you mean to invite me to your party on Fri?_

Tired of writing and re-writing the message, Sue decided to throw caution to the wind and send it through. She watched as it appeared in the previously empty chat window between her and Austin before deciding a follow-up was in order. 

**Sue Gilbert, 06:18PM** : _It’s totally cool if it was an accident, btw, I def won’t be offended_

That, at least, seemed relatively normal. Sue wondered for a second if it _was_ cool, or if she would be offended if Austin replied to her and said that he had never meant to invite her to his house party in the first place. She imagined her reaction and decided it would fall somewhere between relieved and indifferent. She didn’t much like house parties anyway — they were always too claustrophobic and took her back, rather uncomfortably, to her teenage years. With this firmly decided, she stood up and went into the kitchen to start on cooking herself dinner. 

Sue was relatively good at leaving her cell phone alone when she needed to, but as she ate she couldn’t help but think back to it, sitting in the living room. Would Austin have replied by now? What would he have even said? What would _she_ even say to him? 

Below her, her Austin was nosing at her calves. Absentmindedly she tore off a piece of her steak and fed it to him. She’d almost finished her meal before the temptation to check her phone became too strong to resist. She got up and went back to the living room, picking up her cell phone and tapping at the screen. She had four new messages, all from Austin. 

**Austin Dickinson, 08:02PM:** _Hey Sue!!! Totally NOT an accident, you gotta come!!!!!_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:02PM:** _Emily has literally not stopped talking abt u since she crashed into ur garden_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:02PM:** _And abt ur dog. I wld ask u to bring him but I dont want to be upstaged by a cuter Austin :((_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:02PM:** _Anyway its only if ur free!!! But wld be cool to see u again :D_

So, not an accident. Sue felt her brow crease in thought. She hadn’t planned for this possibility and now was unsure of what to say. Eventually, she decided that she would do what she usually did in these situations, which was rely on her dog. 

**Sue Gilbert, 08:37PM:** _Haha yeah, I’m not sure a house party is the best place for a dog anyway…_

Now what? She wasn’t busy but she didn’t want to say she was coming and then chicken out on the night. And she had no idea what to say about Emily. Sue did not consider herself someone to be talked about at all, let alone without stopping. She could understand Emily talking about Austin though — as far as she was concerned her dog was perpetually worth talking about. 

**Sue Gilbert, 08:41PM:** _Thanks for the invite. I’m not the best at dress-up though. Just a warning_

Less than a minute later her phone buzzed with Austin’s reply. 

**Austin Dickinson, 08:42PM:** _I promise u_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:42PM:** _U cannot be worse than like…ANY of the boys. FR_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:42PM:** _Its soooo lame every yr they just paint themselves as skulls and go as skeletons_

Sue felt herself smiling slightly at this before she could stop herself, and at the string of rolling-eyes emojis that Austin sent as a follow-up. 

**Sue Gilbert, 08:45PM:** _Haha ok. Guess I can do better than that at least._

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:46PM:** _Hell yes u can!!! PLS come, Emily will literally kill me if u dont make it and honestly Im young and not ready to go_

The mention of Emily again. There was no avoiding it now. 

**Sue Gilbert, 08:47PM:** _Haha_

 **Sue Gilbert, 08:47PM:** _I didn’t realise I had made such an impression._

 **Sue Gilbert, 08:47PM:** _I’ll have to see if I can get my neighbours to watch Austin. But def would be nice._

There, she thought, looking at the messages with some satisfaction. She’d given herself an out. And not completely ignored Austin’s references to Emily, though she had no idea what to do with them. Her phone buzzed again. 

**Austin Dickinson, 08:48PM:** _HYYYYYYPED!!! :D_

 **Austin Dickinson, 08:48PM:** _See u there Sue :)_

The next few days passed by relatively quickly. Sue got caught up with work and didn’t have much time to devote to thinking about the Dickinsons’ Halloween party — in fact, she’d forgotten about it entirely until she received a calendar notification the day before. 

“Oh shit,” she said to her phone. “Oh, _shit_.”

Austin let out a bark of agreement and she looked over at him.

“Don’t look smug,” she told him. “Mrs Roberts is gonna have to watch you. I didn’t even remember to ask her.”

Fortunately — or unfortunately, if Sue was going to be pessimistic about it — Mrs Roberts was not only able to watch Austin but very willing indeed. For his part, Sue knew Austin would enjoy his evening — Mrs Roberts had three children who loved him to pieces, and her dog was always appreciative of excessive amounts of attention. With one problem solved, she only had one more. 

_What should I dress up as for Halloween?_ Sue typed into Google. 

Unsurprisingly, the Internet yielded many results, but none of them were particularly helpful. In desperation she pulled up the photo album on her phone and started flicking through pictures of her time at college to see if there had been any times she’d met a fancy dress brief particularly well. Eventually she came across a photograph of her in her freshman year, grinning at the camera. She had her arm slung around a boy and a girl, neither of which she remembered the names of. A bottle of beer was dangling from her fingers. She looked, improbably, very happy. 

Austin hopped up into her lap, clearly curious to see what she was looking at, and nudged at the phone screen with his nose. 

“You think?” she asked. She didn’t get much in the way of reply, but figured that even his silence was enough. “Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s go find that old costume, I guess.” 

Sue didn’t try on the costume until the night of the party itself, after Austin had been safely deposited at Mrs Roberts’s house and she’d run out to grab some booze. She supposed, somewhere deep down, she was worried that something wouldn’t work — that it would be fraying at the seams or the jumpsuit wouldn’t fit her any more. The rational part of her was aware that these catastrophes were hugely unlikely. But there was a bigger part of her that was scared that she would put on the costume she had last worn in October of her freshman year and see a younger Sue looking back at her, one who was confident and happy and had living parents. 

She checked her watch. It was almost ten o’clock. No time for introspection. The costume would fit, she told herself. And she just wouldn’t look too hard in the mirror. 

The costume did fit — and Sue managed to get through the rest of her getting-ready routine without too much hassle. By the time she had toed on her heels, tugged on her coat and walked out to the car, it was a quarter past ten. Did that count as late, she wondered? Or fashionably late? Or — 

The car beeped as she unlocked the door. She went to start it before remembering abruptly that she didn’t have the Dickinsons’ address. 

“Shit,” she muttered. She brought up the Facebook event on her cell only to find that the location had been marked simply as _“CASA DICKINSON!!!! (NOT OUR MOM AND DAD’S)”_. 

“Helpful,” she said aloud, sighing. She was already reluctant to attend this party as it was. The universe, it seemed, didn’t particularly want her to go either. Against all her instincts, she brought up Austin’s profile yet again and tapped the message button. 

**Sue Gilbert, 10:17PM:** _Hey, super annoying but I don’t actually have your address. Could you send through?_

She doubted that Austin would see the message but she had absolutely ruled out calling him — her pride could stand a fair few things, but not that. She would wait five minutes in the car, she told herself, before giving up on the whole night, picking up Austin from Mrs Roberts, and rewatching _Practical Magic_. 

Even though the universe seemed insistent on keeping her from going, Austin Dickinson, apparently, had other ideas. Sue had just barely finished her thought before her phone pinged with a message. 

**Austin Dickinson, 10:18PM:** _OMG ur coming!!!!!_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:18PM:** _Sue sue SUE Sue sueEEEEEE_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:18PM:** _Pumped to have u here_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:18PM:** _Quick question_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:18PM:** _Is Sue short for Susan??????????????????_

Sue let out another sigh, although it came out far more amused than the last one. 

_Yes,_ she typed back. _Can you send me your address now?_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:19PM:** _You betcha_

**_Austin Dickinson shared his location._ **

**Austin Dickinson, 10:19PM:** _See u soon Susan B)_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:19PM:** _Soonsan_

 **Austin Dickinson, 10:19PM:** _LLOOOOOL_

“Alright,” Sue murmured to herself, rolling her eyes at Austin’s very clearly drunken texts and pulling the car into gear. “That does the job, I guess.” 

The Dickinsons lived in an apartment on the nicest side of town, which didn’t surprise Sue in the least — even she knew that their dad was a big-time lawyer and owned pretty much half of Amherst. Austin sending his location didn’t help her ascertain the apartment number, but either way it wasn’t necessary; she just followed the noise to the top floor, where the door marked number 1012 was propped slightly open. She took a deep breath to steel herself and gripped her bottle of wine a little tighter before moving to push the door. She was stymied by someone else pulling it open from the other side. It was Emily. She was dressed in all in red, with a crown-shaped headband and thigh-high boots to match. She looked so furiously attractive that Sue blushed almost on instinct. 

“ _Catwoman_?” Emily breathed out. Her mouth was practically hanging open. Sue felt herself blush deeper. 

“Hi,” she said. 

“Hi,” Emily replied. “You look… _wow_.”

“Thanks,” Sue said. “So do you. Are you — Wonder Woman…?”

“Scarlet Witch,” Emily said with a wave, still looking Sue up and down like she wasn’t quite sure she was real. “Wonder Woman is overrated,” she said. The words were falling out of her mouth at rapid speed. “Boring, honestly. I mean, no offence to you if you like her. But Wanda has layers, you know? I love me an antihero.”

“Cool,” Sue said, as soon as there was a point at which she could actually speak. She wasn’t very familiar with the world of comics, but she felt, intuitively, that whoever this Scarlet Witch was, there was no chance she looked as good as Emily did in red lipstick. They stood in front of one another for a second before Sue cleared her throat. “Can I…” she said, gesturing awkwardly behind Emily at the party inside.

“Oh! Yeah — of course. Obviously!” Emily rushed to move aside and pull the door open wider. “Um, welcome to — the Dickinson house, I guess,” she said, gesturing broadly to the apartment. It was spacious and filled with people. From what Sue could see, it had also been very enthusiastically decorated.

“There’s booze over there, in the kitchen,” Emily said, gesturing to her left, “or there was, but there might not be any left, I don’t know. And the keg is in the other room. I think. Er…” she trailed off. “Honestly, Austin usually does the introductions,” she confessed. “He’s more the party planner.”

“I got that vibe,” Sue said. “He’s very active on Facebook.” 

As though sensing he was being discussed, Austin suddenly bounded out of the kitchen, catching sight of Sue and Emily at the door and stumbling towards them with enthusiasm. 

“ _Sue_!” he cried joyfully. “You made it!”

“I did,” Sue said, smiling. She couldn’t help but find him endearing. His drunken state was made funnier by the fact that he was clearly dressed up as The Penguin and was wearing a plastic monocle that kept slipping down his face. “I like your costume,” she said. 

“Thanks,” Austin said, beaming. “I like yours. You look _super_ hot.”

“ _Austin_ ,” Emily said in a scolding tone.

“It’s true!” Austin said, looking at Sue. “Wait, was that not okay to say? You _do_ look hot. Like, _sexy_. I mean, you know that you do, right?”

Sue looked between the Dickinson siblings and felt something in her give way, like a dam breaking. She hadn’t been in a room so full of people for a long time. She’d thought it would be awful but it was freeing, like nothing mattered in the grand scheme of things. She felt suddenly very light. In a smooth movement she uncorked the bottle of wine she was holding and brought it to her lips, taking a swig. 

“Yeah,” she said throatily after taking a long drink. Emily was watching her intently. Her eyes were darker than Sue remembered them being. “I know.” 

Austin let out a loud whoop. “ _Hell_ yes!” He yelled. “Let’s get _liiiiiiiiit_!”

The evening passed Sue by in a haze of drink and warm, sweaty bodies. She danced and introduced herself to drunk strangers and danced again. All the while she felt Emily watching her. She seemed nothing like she had the last time Sue had seen her. Then, she’d been awkward and funny and odd. Now, there was an obscurity to her that seemed put in place in order to mask a deep-set fierceness. Sue just barely resisted being pulled in by it. Instead, she made do with glancing over her shoulder from across the room, again and again, meeting Emily’s eyes and realising each time that they had been on her all the while.

“Hey,” said a voice from somewhere to her left. It was Austin. He had gotten even drunker over the course of the evening. “Sue. Come on. You gotta meet George.” Before she could reply he had grabbed her wrist and dragged her over to the hallway coming out of the living room. There were two doors coming off it. He opened the one on the right to reveal a bedroom where a short man wearing a Darth Vader mask was arranging lines of white powder on the bedside table.

“George!” Austin exclaimed in greeting. “My _man_! You have brought the _good_ stuff tonight!”

“I told you I would,” said George, still from behind the mask. “Oh, hey,” he said, clearly catching sight of her and pulling the mask off his face. He looked a lot less cool than Sue was expecting.

“Hey,” Sue said.

“George, this is Sue,” Austin said. “Sue, this is George. My dear, dear friend, and the finest dealer in the county.”

“Gee, thanks, Austin,” George said with an eye-roll. “Drug dealing is not my full-time job,” he informed Sue as an aside. “I’m in my last year at college. Doing a doctorate next year.”

“That’s cool,” Sue offered.

“So?” Austin said, turning to her with wide, expectant eyes. Sue blinked.

“So…what?” she replied.

“You wanna…” he trailed off and nodded in the direction of the table.

“Oh,” Sue said. “Sure.”

She hadn’t done drugs since college and honestly couldn’t really remember what effect they would had on her. Still, she supposed, when in Rome. She was just leaning over the bedside table when the door opened again.

“ _Really_ , Austin?” came an indignant voice from behind her. “ _Without_ me? And in _my_ _room_?”

“My room is busy,” Austin protested. Sue straightened up and turned around to see Emily standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.

“Busy _how_?” she asked.

“Honestly, I’m trying not to think about it,” Austin said, wrinkling his nose in repulsion. “I saw Ship go in there with a girl, like, twenty minutes ago and they haven’t come out since.”

“Hi Emily,” George said from beside Sue. She couldn’t be sure, because the whole room was dark, but it looked like he was blushing.

“George,” Emily said with a nod, before shifting her gaze over to Sue. “So Austin managed to get a hold of you,” she said.

“Um,” Sue said. “I mean, he kind of just grabbed me.”

Emily’s lips quirked upwards in amusement. “He beat me to it.”

“To what? Taking me in here to do drugs?” Sue asked.

“To getting a hold of you,” Emily clarified. “If I’d known it was that easy to get your attention, I would have grabbed you ages ago.”

Sue blinked. She opened her mouth to reply — though she had no idea what she was going to say — but was cut off by Austin clearing his throat pointedly.

“Can we, _you know_?” he said with a nod at the table. “Cause I wanna get back to the _paaaaarty_!”

“Sure,” Emily said, stepping forward and elbowing her brother out of the way.

“Hey!” Austin cried, clearly outraged.

“Ladies first,” Emily told him sweetly. “Right, George?” she asked, turning to him and batting her eyelashes. Sue watched with amusement as George’s mouth fell slightly open.

“Uh, right,” he said finally after struggling to speak for a few seconds. “Absolutely. Ladies first.”

Emily turned to Sue with a smirk. “You heard the man,” she said. “Ladies first. Have some fun, Sue.”

Sue had no choice but to do what she was told. Later, looking back on what she could remember of the party, she would realise that after that point she spent almost all of her night with Emily. She remembered dancing with her — and Austin, and even Lavinia, after Emily and Austin introduced her to Sue. She remembered doing shots and lying on the couch, laughing at George's bad jokes. And she remembered going outside with Emily to sit on the edge of the sidewalk and smoke cigarettes that she had seemed to conjure out of nowhere.

“I didn’t think you would come,” Emily said after a long stretch of quietness.

Sue exhaled, watching the smoke disappear into the night. “I didn’t think I would come either,” she confessed.

“Why did you?”

Sue shrugged. “I don’t know. Why did you invite me?”

“Because I wanted to,” Emily said. Then, after a pause: “Because I felt like I had to see you again.”

They were drunk. It meant that they fell into the common party-habit of skipping several stages of intimacy with your conversation partner, of finding yourself confessing deep secrets and subconscious emotions to a near-stranger.

“Okay,” Sue said.

“I was starting to think I had made up that whole night in my head,” Emily told her. “The night I walked onto your lawn and spoke to you and Austin. Your Austin.”

“You didn’t make it up,” Sue said. “Or if you did, I made it up too.”

“I feel like we’ve known each other forever,” Emily said, looking at her.

Sue couldn’t stand the intensity of her gaze and looked away. “I guess we have, maybe,” she said. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“But we’ve not been friends,” Emily said. “We’ve known _of_ each other. Not _known_ each other.” It didn’t feel like she was trying to offend her — only like she was trying to tell the truth.

Sue took another drag from her cigarette. “No,” she agreed eventually. “We’ve not been friends. I haven’t thought about you since we were thirteen.”

“Me neither,” Emily said thoughtfully. “But we’re here.”

“Yeah.”

“I like it,” she said at last. “Being here.” For the first time all evening Emily seemed to Sue more like the lighter, stranger version of herself that she had been before. The dark intensity of the party wasn’t completely banished. It lingered somewhere behind her. But there was a stretch of frankness between them, now. It took a weight off of Sue that she didn’t even realise she was bearing.

“I like it too,” Sue said.

Emily smiled, suddenly. It illuminated her face like sun reflecting into a white-washed room. “Good,” she said. “That’s good.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok in typical fashion i had to add a chapter cause...the slow burn be slow burning i guess...
> 
> i DO think that Emily would dress up as wanda for a halloween party and like in another life ben would probably go as vision (rip, miss him every day). sue as cat woman? also a given. i am open to other thoughts and alternative views on this matter however 
> 
> introspective chapter, sorry! sue loves to have hidden multitudes smh. i promise she will actually TALK to emily more next chapter
> 
> also, is 'ask about plus 1s' something that americans say or is it yet another phrase limited to the british vernacular? asking for a british friend who continues to insist on writing american fic (it's me, i'm the british friend)

**Author's Note:**

> this will probably be a three-parter...with updates to come fairly soon, i hope. in the meantime, drop me a comment, if you like. you can find me on tumblr, @denouements, i like talking about dickinson (amongst other things) and i also take prompts.


End file.
